Trends in content types and faux difficulty

[AegisXI]

By this I mean anything else, literally ANYTHING.

Go craft, mine, socialize, raindeer ifrit, rum through town in a Subligar.

If you do the same thing 20 times a day, day after day. I dont care what it is...you will get burnt out. If you can say "well I've done everything!". Here is my recommendation to you then

Grab a peice of paper and tape it to your screen and write on it "Game Over! You Won!" Pat yourself on the back and move on.

I rather not do what you do on ur free time and run around town in a subligar... I rather get equipment and better my character that way.

[elreed]

i agree with the op. content should reward skill and dedication not luck, several times saw people doing ifrit for the first/second time and they got the weapon i wanted and i did those fights lots of times, i felt like it was a cheap shot from SE, while i was happy for them, sometimes they didnt even had the class/job leveled up, so yeah i would love to see more of the op. ideas implemented, no dumb downs just what is fair, lockouts doesnt seem to be a problem once we have more stuff to do, that will give to the dev team enough time to get quality content all the time.

In durandal you can see several linkshells spaming new content like crazy, in a week you can see several people with full sets or several weapons per character, so in a few words spam content is not the best option, no acomplishment just wait

[Gao]

If you do the same thing 20 times a day, day after day. I dont care what it is...you will get burnt out. If you can say "well I've done everything!". Here is my recommendation to you then
.

Yeah that's about anything really, even in real life. What I'm trying to get at is, this is going back to the OP, people shouldn't be largely rewarded based on just luck alone, but based on skill AND Luck. Sure keep the RNG so that content makes you keep going back to it but if its .10% chance of getting the item that's not content, that's just a dumb way to get people going back to it. It's not skills anymore if you know exactly what to do ._. I know I know, the whole luck and skill thing contradicts each other but yeah... if luck is mostly the only thing that brings you back to that said content that's just dumb <_<

[Velhart]

If a totem system was in CC/AV, this would be a whole different story.

[Kazimir]

I agree that the spammable content is a horrible MMO design. The content gets very boring way too quickly, which is why most (more successful MMO's) put timers on how often you can enter a dungeon. The drop rates don't have to be greatly improved, just improved enough to match the timers.

Problem is there's always going to be people complaining that they have to wait before doing the dungeon again. People want their gear asap but when everyone in the game gets it within the first few weeks they then start complaining about it.

For the end-game content they should really follow the model of some dungeons having 24-hour timers and the biggest raids with the best gear having a week long reset timer. Of course they need more content to make up for it, but even a lack of content isn't a reason for following a very bad model of spamming.

[Biggs]

i hate to disagree, but at this point until 2.0 there's not much choice besides adding spammable content. with the fact people are so starved for content because of the pathetic amount of endgame content in the game right now. when only adding 1 piece of content every few months it's not enough to keep people interested if it had a long lockout. people run that one piece over and over because it's the only new piece. when the next piece comes out people are sick of the previous content.

i'm hoping once 2.0 releases it will come with massive amounts of content so they would be able to add a lockout. the problem right now though is if it had a 3 day lockout on new content i know myself and alot of others that would only sign in once every 3 days to run it and then sign out for the next 3 days. we've already completed what's in game repeatedly so there's nothing else to sign in, for the most part.

the biggest issue they have with long lockouts on content is that this game has been out over 18 months and in that time we've only had a small amount of content developed for the capped level players. there's actually a higher amount of mid level content than there is for end game as far as pure numbers go.

100% agree Poet. Why would they bother giving us content that is deep and lasting for a server and UI system they are getting ready to dump in a few months. I feel like all the content we ave been givin so far for "end-game" is meant to just keep us busy while they rework the game. The true content that I think shows a better example of the direction the game is headed is things like the class quests, materia, hamlets, and GC related stuff that will clearly be in the game well after 2.0. I think most people need to remember that the reason we keep getting instanced content is because of the shitty server system. I think we should reserve our judgement until post 2.0, when we begin getting content designed for the new version fo the game and not the old.

[Kiara]

With each update I've become increasingly worried about the direction that FFXIV's content is headed in...

So please SE, I'm begging you, move away from the "spamable content + abysmally low drop rate" model for everything. IT IS NOT FUN.

Hi Sol,

Excellent post! I totally agree with your sentiments that we should have more Content that rewards Skill over Luck.

Though one thing that the current system has that *is* nice is the freedom to able to cater to any player's schedule. Having 3 Day Lockouts would make it pretty difficult for those not doing statics, or those not having the same free time as someone else. For example, if your friends / LS did AV on Tuesday with a 3 Day Lockout, but you weren't available on Saturday (next time it's open), but were on Sunday, if your friends / LS did it on Saturday, you'd be left out (and they couldn't even help you try again on Sunday) with the lockout timer.

Regarding Ifrit and Moogle (not to defend Yoshida-san), that whole crappy Loot System / Drop Rate was done blatantly as a Time Sink. Sadly, with the team split with 2.0 duties and keeping us busy / "happy" in the meantime, they only had time to do *1* Primal Fight for an entire Patch (~3 months).

So it's pretty obvious in SE's eyes, they were probably thinking, "How do we keep the players busy for 3 months with just 1 Boss Fight (Ifrit)?"

Answer: "Random Number Generator + Super Low Drop Rate + New Crappy FORCED Untradeable Loot In Your Inventory System"

Same for Moogle.

That being said, maybe we should offer up some ideas on what would reward more player skill (instead of RNG).

Here are some ideas to increase Drop Rate / Extra Chest(?) to reward Players for their efforts instead of mind-numbingly Low Drop Rates:

* Have Alternate (Harder) Paths / Side Bosses in the Dungeon that if you have time to beat / have the skill to beat, will reward the party with an Extra Chest / Better Drop Rate.

* No Deaths (or if that's too punitive, "Less Than ~3 Deaths" or something). Essentially a take on the classic Arcade "No Continues" idea. No one dying (even once) on a Raid would reward a Higher Drop Rate, or Extra Chest.

* Incapacitations. Perhaps parties taking the time to get Incapacitations on Bosses, would be rewarded with a Higher Drop Rate / Extra Chest? This would matter more on Bosses that had Dangerous Directional Attacks (for example, Chimera with its Poison Back Attack), so that the party has to take the added Risk to avoid / survive Rear Attacks, and Incapacitate a Boss (all Limbs?) to get an Extra Chest / Higher Drop Rate.

* Killing All "Boss Adds / Helpers" - Perhaps on some Boss Fights, there are unique Adds (like the Chirada / Suparna idea, but maybe they were Optional). Parties that took the time (and risk) to go out and destroy all the Boss Helpers / Adds (where they were optional) could reward with an Extra Chest / Higher Drop Rate.

I'm sure fellow players can come up with many more ideas.

But the bottom line is that I would rather repeat content FAR LESS, but have it be more challenging with HIGHER DROP RATES, than spam repeat content hundreds of times and just have it be based on Luck.

If you think about it, even the big "Crafting-based System" - Materia - is based on the same crappy Luck / Random Number Generator System we see in Dungeons / Primals. I've seen someone get lucky and get a Double Meld on their first try (and they only have 1 Craft leveled), and I've had friends with All Crafts Leveled to Max blow up ~15 Double Melds in a Row before getting a success.

Just like a friend who got their desired Ifrit's Harpoon on the *1st* Ifrit Fight (with us), vs. myself, who has over 250 Wins on Ifrit and still have no Harpoon.

It's all just rolling the dice. Yoshi P seems to rather favor everyone "playing the Lottery" (random number generator) with an equally abysmal chance to roll to win, vs. rewarding SKILL.

Yoshida-san, I think many people would rather earn their drops and be rewarded for their Skill / Effort, instead of suffering the Random Number Generator / Crappy Drop Rates System we have now.

Sure people may finish getting their Drops sooner (before a New Patch comes out), but that's OK! Let the players *choose* HOW they want to spend their extra time.

They could actually (gasp), repeat the content (if they had to spam it far less) for their Friends / LS members / Strangers, or decide to build up Crafts / work on Triple, Quad Materia Melding, etc.

But ultimately, let them decide. Right now, many people are burning out on this trend, and the Hamlet Defense / Drop Rate you have now for AF Weapons Quest and Militia Gear is only continuing this horrible trend.

Thanks.

[Jinrya-Geki]

If there's anything just as bad as horrible drop rates. It's the fact that you can waste all that time on crappy items too.

[TerahValeth]

100% agree Poet. Why would they bother giving us content that is deep and lasting for a server and UI system they are getting ready to dump in a few months. I feel like all the content we ave been givin so far for "end-game" is meant to just keep us busy while they rework the game. The true content that I think shows a better example of the direction the game is headed is things like the class quests, materia, hamlets, and GC related stuff that will clearly be in the game well after 2.0. I think most people need to remember that the reason we keep getting instanced content is because of the shitty server system. I think we should reserve our judgement until post 2.0, when we begin getting content designed for the new version fo the game and not the old.

That's all fine and well, but it has some of us worried that their model of "extending content through shitty drop rates" will be the status quo post 2.0. And the reason that that worry has grown (the reason some of us are here now, asking whether this is the direction they have planned for us post 2.0) is that the more recent content (Vale/CC/Hamlet) has even lower drop rates than prior content (Dark Hold/Ifrit/Moogle). I see a trend like that, and I can hope that it's better post 2.0, but I also see what direction it's going in and can't help worrying about it.

I understand that they aren't going to be coming out w/ any groundbreaking content on these crappy servers, it's that the method they are using to falsely extend content is a slap in the face for anyone who brings their A-game but gets unlucky over and over, especially since some of us have stuck with the game since the beginning through the horrible horrible times and the good, holding onto our faith in our new dev. team. I'm not saying the content is going to be the greatest right now, but please extend it some other way (ie: 1-3 day lockouts, or whatever) that doesn't just burn everyone out.

Lastly, for anyone who replies to my post saying "well don't run it as often", go read the rest of this thread first, that topic has been thoroughly covered and Issaru has the math to back me up.

[Phen]

Lockouts aren't the answer there has to be something else. At least not the 24+ ones. Enough to make it unfeasible to spam but short enough to prevent "id like to play this game and do that dungeon I like but I actually cant for 36 more hours." Also that obviously applies to wins only or otherwise people will never take any chances or experiment.